


but still i find you there, (next to me)

by stardustgirl



Series: Rebels Oneshots [6]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (well some of it is), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Kanan Jarrus Needs a Hug, Kanan Jarrus deserved better, Kanan Jarrus-centric, Lots of Angst, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Tears, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, platonic rexsoka, platonic sabezra, this is mostly me rambling oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-24 01:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16170626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustgirl/pseuds/stardustgirl
Summary: And then came the betrayal. Caleb Dume fled in terror, and someone else made it out alive.It was not Caleb Dume.Kanan Jarrus was born that day.||~~~||A Rebels Soulmates AU (with lots of Clone Wars references).





	but still i find you there, (next to me)

The word he had on his wrist was his name.

His _true_ name, but not the one he had been raised with. This one was Kanan.

Just Kanan.

When he was young and still Caleb Dume, it had confused him. Who was Kanan? Was it the name of his soulmate? Was their first interaction also to be their last?

He didn’t realize the significance of it until he had been given a new name while on the run, thanks to that smuggler. Kanan Jarrus. The name seemed to fit, and only then did he remember the name on the inside of his left wrist that he had hidden and tried to forget for years—there was no room for soulmates in the Jedi Order. You were to cover the name on your wrist and pretend it had never existed. Despite all his questions, Caleb Dume had listened, and tried to forget.

Younglings had whispered about the names written on the wrists of the Padawans and Knights and Masters of their Order. It was said that Master Skywalker had his name and a half promise. Master Kenobi, one arrogant Padawan had whispered, had the words _I always will._ Padawan Tano’s wrist spoke of a general. _A clone?_ some whispered in shock. Everyone knew clones didn’t have soulmates, didn’t have words on their arms. It had been bred out of them. _No, another Jedi,_ others responded in the dark of night. One did not discuss soulmates lightly.

And then came the betrayal. Caleb Dume fled in terror, and someone else made it out alive.

It was not Caleb Dume.

Kanan Jarrus was born that day.

He understood where the word on his wrist came from now, but he still ignored it. He ignored it as he cut the thin braid in his dark hair, he ignored it as he drunk his life away, he ignored it as his life turned into a blur of women and bars and running, running, running, always running.

And then he met Hera Syndulla.

It took time for her to learn to trust him and for him to learn that she wouldn’t betray him as Grey and Styles had. She was young—Force, they were _both_ so young then—and he was a ragged mess of a man and they were both so imperfect and confused and lost but they found their way _together._

She was 20 and he was 24 when she finally showed him the words on her wrist.

_Must be the truth serum talking._

She was 22 and he was 26 and still learning to trust again when he showed her his.

_Kanan._

He learned from Zeb that Lasats didn’t have the same way of knowing.

Instead, they had some sort of mark that their soulmate—if they were a Lasat—shared. He had never been able to understand the specifics of it like Hera had.

Sabine had come next. He gotten the impression that the Mandalorian would never fully trust them. He never expected to learn what the words on her wrist were.

She told him, after they had begun the liberation of Mandalore. In the _Phantom II,_ on their way back to Yavin IV, while Ezra was succeeding in attempts to sleep and the other two were unable to after the horrors of the Duchess— _it still weighs on you, doesn’t it, the guilt,_ he almost asked her. But that would’ve been cruel in the face of the nightmare she had just relived.

_And remember, the Force will be with you, always._

She told him in a quiet voice that Mandalorians believed that soulmates weren’t necessarily a romantic concept—your _a’isr’vod_ could be your best friend, the only one you could count on in battle. Your sibling, even.

In turn, he told her what the Jedi had taught of forgetting.

She cursed the Order and he, for an odd moment, agreed with her.

Ezra still hadn’t told them his words until after he had returned from Tatooine. It was a rare, quiet morning on Atollon, the calm before the storm. Both of them could sense it.

 _Well, you could’ve told the rest of us._ There was silence. He was blind then, and he had swung his head in the direction of his voice. _My words, I mean. The ones- the ones on my wrist._

They were silent after that.

It was the night on the fuel pod, holding back the fire, that he remembered his words to Hera and the words on her arm.

And as she yelled his name, his _true_ name, with a raw, primal fear that he knew would echo through his bones forever, he knew this was it.

Caleb Dume was alive again.

But Kanan Jarrus was gone forever.

Just as the Order had wanted.


End file.
